Roof rails are popular on many types of vehicles. They offer both functionality for carrying loads and esthetics. Many roof rails are elongate structures that are attached to the roof of a vehicle via one or more fastening systems. In modem passenger vehicles the vehicle body and the roof overlap each other near the top edge of the vehicle. As such some fastening systems connect through both the vehicle roof and the body. To connect through both the vehicle body and the roof a tolerance compensator may be used as a means of fastening the roof rail to the roof without collapsing the roof/body separation.
Fastening devices with tolerance compensation and those that anchor into hollow structures are generally known: see for example U.S. Pat. No. 7,025,552 entitled “Assembly for Automatically Compensating Variations in the Spacing Between Two Structural Members”; U.S. Pat. No. 5,288,191 entitled “Device For the Clamping Attachment of Spaced Structural Parts”; U.S. Pat. No. 4,682,906 entitled “Device For the Clamping Connection of Structural Parts Which are Spaced From Each Other”; and U.S. Pat. No. 8,066,465 entitled “Fastening Device With Tolerance Compensation” the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
However what is needed is a roof rail with an attachment system that has tolerance compensation and is easier to install.